The J-A-C-K Lounge (J-League, A-League, CSL, K-League)

Hello fellow forumers and welcome to the 3rd installment of the J-A-C-K football (サッカー, soccer, 足球, 축구) lounge! Properly coined to invoke discussion about the Japanese, Australian, Chinese and Korean leagues that have been represented in FIFA and FUT, but never really been discussed or looked at. What I hope to achieve by having this lounge, is that someone sees this and becomes interested in East Asian football, or someone notices this and knows there are other fans out there on the forums!

League Introductions, Past Squads, Top Scorer, Table, and Current Champions:

J-League

Starting with the J-League, or the Meiji Yasuda J1 League: Japanese football is on the rise both domestically and internationally. The Blue Samurai are an Asian powerhouse, and most of their players come from their domestic league. The league consists of 18 teams and the season runs from late February to the beginning of December and is set up in a typical league style format with the team with the most points at the end of the season taking home the title. There are 3 AFC Champions League playoff spots up for grabs at the end of the season, with the 3rd spot being a Champions League playoff spot. In addition, the bottom 3 teams are also relegated to J2 at the end of the season.

And the 2018 champions were Kawasaki Frontale (川崎フロンターレ, Kawasaki Furontāre)

K-League

The K-League Classic, or Korean Professional Football League, is Korea's top flight in it's association. The league has 12 clubs and runs from March to late November. The league also follows the typical points driven, league table format, with the team with most points taking the title at the end of the year, and the top 3 teams getting access to the AFC Champions League. The exception to that is that Sangju Sangmu is not allowed to qualify should they so, because of their unique status as a team comprised of players who are serving their required military service. Two teams are up for relegation at the end of the year, with the 12th place team automatically relegated, and the 11th place team playing a playoff game against one of the promotion candidate teams for a place in the league again the following season.

All-time XI:

Blast from the Past:

FIFA 10:

FIFA 11:

FIFA 12:

FIFA 13:

FIFA 14:

FIFA 15:

FIFA 16:

FIFA 17:

Top Goal Scorer:

Adam Taggart (Suwon Samsung Bluewings) - 16 goals in 28 games:

The league table currently looks like:

And the 2018 Champions were Jeonbuk Hyundai Motors FC (전북 현대 모터스)

A-League

The Hyundai A-League is the top flight of Australia and consists of 10 teams. The season runs from October to May, playing 27 games, and is finishing with a playoff that includes the league's top teams and a championship game that crowns the A-League champion (the team in first place at the end of the season is called the "premier"). The premier and the champion both receive qualification into the AFC Champions League. There is no promotion/relegation.

All-time FUT XI:

Blast from the Past:

FIFA 10:

FIFA 11:

FIFA 12:

FIFA 13:

FIFA 14:

FIFA 15:

FIFA 16:

FIFA 17:

Reigning Top Goal Scorer:

Roy Krishna (Wellington Phoenix) - 18 goals in 27 games

The league "ladder":

And the 2018/2019 premier is Perth Glory:

And the 2018/2019 champion is Sydney FC:

Hopefully this is enough information to get you interested in at least one of these leagues, and also get excited for some IFs in another new FIFA!

I'm in! Altho i'm mainly interested in the J-league and Japanese national team, and i'll admit my knowledge of the league is pretry minimal. I'm originally from Kobe tho, so it's nice to see news on how the team is doing. Pretty crazy that Podolski ended up there!